an experimental approach to understanding banner adverts’ … · 2017-08-29 · advert...

connection with advert effectiveness.Therefore, a more holistic approachneeds to be taken to measure the banneradvert’s effectiveness which not onlytakes into account consumers’information-processing mechanisms butprovides a theoretical basis forunderstanding behavioural measuresassociated with adverts’ effectiveness.3-5

Some researchers have attempted toexplain the effectiveness of advertisingfrom a rather narrower informationprocessing paradigm. For instance, manycognitive psychologists have investigated

INTRODUCTIONA critical area of Internet research whichrequires keen attention is developing atheoretical framework which can explainand determine the cause and effects ofsuccessful banner adverts. Most extantstudies attempted to explain theeffectiveness of banner adverts inresult-oriented terms such as conversionefficiency and promotionaleffectiveness.1,2 Hardly any, however,sought to understand the role of theconsumer’s perception of what ispresented in a banner advert in

� Henry Stewart Publications 1479-1862 (2003) Vol. 11, 3, 255-272 Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing 255

An experimental approach tounderstanding banneradverts’ effectivenessReceived (in revised form): 26th September, 2002

Sung-Joon Yoonis Associate Professor of Marketing in the School of Business Administration at Kyonggi University, Seoul, Korea. His mainresearch areas are in online advertising/marketing, consumer behaviour and marketing strategy.

Abstract The primary objectives of this study were, using empirical data from Internetusers in Korea, to discover the major motives for consumers’ use of Internet (banner)adverts, and to determine the sources of effectiveness of banner adverts in terms ofadvert type (text vs picture) and advert content (information vs prize) by incorporatingthe theoretical premises developed on the role of the consumer’s level of involvementon advert effectiveness.

The result showed that respondents wanted to use banner adverts for ‘maintainingsocial relationships’, ‘rest and pass time,’ ‘curiosity,’ ‘practical reasons,’ ‘two-waycommunication,’ and for ‘interest in product’. Another result showed that image wassignificantly more effective than text for an Internet banner advert. It was also foundthat the level of advert involvement had a significant impact on the effectiveness ofbanner adverts, showing higher advert preference for advert type and advert contentwhen consumers were highly involved. Consumers who were highly involved and thosewho had low involvement were both more positively responsive to image-based advertsthan text-based adverts. Highly-involved consumers, however, were more positivelyresponsive to prize adverts than to information adverts whereas low-involvementconsumers were slightly more positively responsive to information adverts.

Sung-Joon Yoon PhDAssociate Professor ofMarketing,Department of BusinessAdministration,Kyonggi UniversitySeodaemoon-gu,Choongjongro 2-ga, 71,Seoul, Korea 120-702.

Tel: �82 2390 5135;Fax: �82 2390 5135;e-mail:[email protected]

understanding media audiences’ needsand preferences. It was previously arguedby researchers that cognitive ‘matching’is necessary between system properties (iebeing visual or verbal) and consumerpreferential needs (ie preferring visual orverbal presentation) in order to ensuremaximum user satisfaction.10

Until now, very few studies lookedinto the motives for using banneradverts. For example, Clawson11 foundthat consumers looked for control,convenience and customisation in theiruse of banner adverts. His findingsuggests that advert consumers are intenton turning their conventional role asinformation receiver into that ofinformation processor who is capable ofchoosing the kind of advert of interest tothem. This finding on the importance ofinformation seeking in the use of theInternet was later supported by Park etal.12 who approached the Internet usagemotive from information on searchbehaviour. They argued that consumersprimarily search for information on theInternet for the following three reasons:

— to satiate desire or curiosity relating toknowledge about a product or service

— to get rid of boredom or monotony— to achieve a positive goal despite the

risk of uncertainty.

Also, Lee13 identified the following fourmajor characteristics of banner adverts:

— intentional advert exposure— information oriented advert— global marketing— high potential advert effectiveness.

Similarly, highlighting the informationalaspect of banner adverts, another studyfound that the majority of respondents inits study (40.6 per cent) clicked onbanner adverts with the intention ofobtaining information.14 In addition, 28.6

the effects of human senses in theprocess of information storage. Theytried to explain the differential effects oftext and image on memoryenhancement.6–9 They concluded thatinformation conveyed by image is moreeasily recalled and recognised thantextual information. But, due to therelative recency of banner advertising, acomprehensive approach to measuringthe advertising effectiveness of theInternet has been sparse. Especiallywanting are studies on measuring theeffectiveness of banner adverts usingmore diverse sets of stimuli. Thus, moreattention needs to be paid tounderstanding the effects of not onlymessage type but also other characteristicsof banner adverts. For instance, theadvert message’s intended objective mayaffect advert effectiveness through users’varying levels of comprehension orpersonal involvement. Also, other stimuliworth investigating are advert design,colour and size.

These research issues are addressed inthis study in terms of the following tworesearch objectives:

— dicovery of user-based motives for theuse of banner adverts

— determination of the basis of theeffectiveness of banner adverts.Specifically, the role of advert type(text vs image), advert content(information vs prize) and level ofconsumer involvement on adverteffectiveness are investigatedempirically.

WHY DO CONSUMERS USEBANNER ADVERTS?Since the Internet is widely accepted as anew medium breaking the traditionalboundaries of media advertising, anyattempt to distinguish it from traditionalmedia should include a broader base for

256 Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing Vol. 11, 3, 255–272 � Henry Stewart Publications 1479-1862 (2003)

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ritualised, diversionary orientation refersto the use of a medium such astelevision in a generalised,time-consuming fashion. According tothis definitional scheme, the Internet maybe regarded as having more of aninstrumental orientation than adiversionary one due to the selectivityand intentionality characteristicsassociated with banner advertising.

Finally, another theory that could helpexplain Web choice behaviour is Katz etal.’s process model.18 According to thismodel, the social and psychologicalorigins of needs lead to motivationwhich leads to the expectation ofrewards which causes a person to selectsources which, in turn, will givesatisfaction. The social and psychologicalneeds which are shared essentially by allmedia users are:

— cognitive needs (related tostrengthening of information,knowledge and understanding of theenvironment)

— affective needs (related tostrengthening aesthetic, pleasurableand emotional experiences)

— personal integrative needs (related tostrengthening credibility, confidence,stability and the status of theindividual)

— social integrative needs (related tostrengthening contact with family,friends and the world)

— escapist needs (related to escape,tension release and desire fordiversion).

Conceptual framework

Greenwald and Leavitt19 studied audienceinvolvement as an attention concept andclassified level of audience involvementinto pre-attention, focal attention,comprehension and elaboration.According to their model, when a

per cent of respondents said they clickedbecause they wanted discount coupons,prizes or free software, and 19.9 per centreported that their reason for clickingrelated to the shape and graphics ofbanner adverts. This finding is significantin that, besides the importance ofinformation sought by banner advertusers, promotional elements like prizesalso play a role in increasing theeffectiveness of the adverts.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDSAND HYPOTHESESDespite the importance of understandingrelevant theoretical foundations, very fewsocial science theories were actuallyadopted in explaining the motives forusing adverts on the Internet. Hunter15

raised the possibility of usingexpectancy-value theory to understandwhat motivates a person to choose onemedium over another. He quotesDervin16 in explaining the theory’sapplicability, postulating that ‘exposure tomass communication results frompersons’ seeking valued consequencesthat they associate with particularmessages or media’.

Other theories were pointed out aspotentially useful for explaining the useof the Web. Most notably, researcherssuggested the uses and gratificationstheory to understand behaviour on theWeb. According to this theory, audiencemembers approach the media withvariable expectations and goals and seekto gratify their needs and wants. Rubin17

stated that ‘communication behavior,including media selection and use, isgoal-directed, purposive, and motivated’.Rubin differentiated media orientation aseither instrumental or ritualised (ordiversionary). An instrumental orientationaccommodates selectivity, intentionalityand involvement of media consumers. Asopposed to instrumental orientation, a


An experimental approach to understanding banner adverts’ effectiveness

level of information processing based oninvolvement. This study adapted Finn’sconceptual model to explain the basicpremises of banner adverts in terms ofthe level of information processing asdepicted in Figure 1.

The effects of advert type on adverteffectiveness

Most of the studies on consumerbehaviour concerning the superiority oftextual versus pictorial adverts have beenapproached from two major perspectives.One group of studies focused ondistinguishing the effects of advert type(textual vs pictorial) in terms ofenhancing consumers’ awareness andbrand recall.22,23 Another group focusedon the effects of advert type onconsumers’ evaluation of product.24,25

Viewed collectively, the primary focus ofthese researchers was on explaining thedifferential effects of text and image onmemory enhancement.26–29 One of the

message is exposed to an audience,sensory buffering and feature analysis takeplace at a pre-attention level. At focalattention level, choice of informationpath and sensory as well as semanticinformation processing take place and atcomprehension level phrase analysis takesplace. Finally, at elaboration level,conceptual analysis takes place. In termsof cognitive effects (instant vs persistent),they postulated that at each level ofaudience involvement, instant adverteffects are generated when each processis code-based analysed and when asituation-dependent code is activated.Persistent cognitive effect does not takeplace at a pre-attention level but at afocal attention level where image isformed. At a comprehension level, aproposition effect takes place, andconceptual effect takes place only at anelaboration level. Finn20 advanced thestudy of Greenwald and Leavitt21 onestep further to devise a model whichprescribed measurement units at each


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Figure 1 A model of information processing level for banner adverts

Detection ofbanner advert

Pre-attention

Notice of advertformat

Focal attention

Identification ofadvert content

Comprehension

Personalisationof copy message Elaboration

Banner style, size, andlocation is important

Advert format (text orimage) affects mentalimagery

Advert contentdetermines personalrelevance andwillingness to pursuefurther processing

Personal identificationof message determineseffectiveness of advertmessage in terms ofclick intention andpurchase intention

Behaviour Cues Key effectsLevel of information processing

purchase entails high risk, they are likelyto be highly involved, whereas whenthere is little need for purchase, or suchpurchase does not involve any risk, theyare less likely to be involved. Thus, thelevel of consumer involvement is likelyto affect the information processinginvolving product purchase35 andtherefore be highly relevant to the studyof effectiveness of banner adverts. Therole of involvement in adverteffectiveness has been extensively studied.For instance, Krugman,36,37 whodeveloped the theory of lowinvolvement to explain adverteffectiveness, found that involvementexerted significant influence onconsumers’ response to adverts. Hecharacterised low involvement consumersas possessing the following traits:

— they learn information at random— they are information gatherers, not

seekers— they represent a passive audience for

advertising— they buy first and evaluate later— they seek some acceptable level of

satisfaction and buy based on only afew attributes.

Another theory which sheds additionallight on uninvolved consumers isSherif ’s38 social judgment theory. Thispostulates that a highly involvedindividual who has a definite opinionabout an issue would accept very fewother positions and would reject a widenumber of positions. Conversely, anuninvolved individual would find morepositions acceptable or have no opinionabout the issue. Rothschild andHouston39 extended Sherif ’s study topredict that highly involved consumerswill use more attributes to evaluate fewerbrands, while less involved consumerswill use fewer attributes to considermore brands.

most predominant findings on the effectsof message type is that informationconveyed by image is more easilyrecalled and recognised than textualinformation. It was argued thatimage-based information facilitates theuse of mental imagery which is recreatedin the mind of consumers after stimulusexposure.30–32

The banner advert’s visual attributemay not, however, always producepositive reaction to the interactive typeof advertisement. It was found thatdepending on the characteristics of theadvertisement properties and respondents’orientation (eg visual-ness and verbal-nessdimensions), the interactivity mayactually inhibit the process of persuasion;respondents with visual orientationtended to be hampered by the interactivesystem as opposed to the traditionallinear system when the respondentsshowed decreased purchase intention andspent less time on the advertisements.33

Also, Lutz,34 who studied advertisingeffectiveness in terms of memoryactivation using Yellow Pages, found thatof the three types of advertising(interactive pictorial, non-interactivepictorial and text), only the interactivepictorial type produced a significant levelof memory activation. Based on theabove theoretical and empiricalobservations, the following hypothesis isset forth:

H1: The banner advert’s effectivenesswill be significantly affected by adverttype.

Effects of consumer involvement onadvert effectiveness

Many previous studies investigated theeffects of involvement on advertisingeffectiveness. When consumers perceivehigh need for product purchase or the



motivation and information-processingability. According to the theory, messagerecipients take a central processing routewhen they are high in cognitiveelaboration (eg when they are involvedwith the product-related message based onpast experience or knowledge), but theytake a peripheral route when they are lessinvolved with the message by taking cuesfrom non-product related stimuli such asadvert model, background music orgraphics. A similar finding was reportedby Mitchell41 who postulated that insituations of low involvement, level ofattention to stimulus is low and hence theattention is directed to non-messageelements (eg headline, logo, illustration)rather than message contents, whereas inthe highly-involved situation, greaterattention is primarily directed towardsinformation about product attributes. Also,Finn42 reported that once attention isgiven to an advert, consumers either tryto interpret its meaning according to theirgoals or they become interested insecondary elements (eg headline, logo,illustration). Also, according toKrugman’s43 passive learning theory, whenconsumers are passive and non-interestedin the advert, no evaluation of the adverttakes place and therefore advertisersshould focus on elements of the advertwhich are less informative about products.Since this study purports to discover theeffects of banner adverts in terms of theircontent (ie information oriented vs prizeoriented), the following hypothesis isproposed:

H3a: A product information orientedadvert is more effective than a prizeoriented advert when consumers arehighly involved in the advert.

H3b: A prize oriented advert is moreeffective than a product informationoriented advert when consumers havelow involvement in the advert.

The level of influence on memoryusing different message type (ie text andgraphics), had much to do with the levelof consumer involvement. In his study,Mowen (see reference 9) reported thattext-based information yielded greatesteffect when the recipient was highlyinvolved and when the recipient wasmotivated to process the entire messagesemantically, whereas graphically orientedinformation was more effective when therecipient had low involvement.

There is another theoretical approachto explaining the effects of involvementon information processing from thefunctional attributes of the human brain.According to the split-brain theory, theright-side brain is intended for affectiveand emotional functions, while theleft-side brain is for rational andanalytical functions. Generally, in lowinvolvement situations, consumers relyon visual, audio and non-cognitiveinformation. Against this theoreticalbackground, Foote, Cone & Belding(FCB) advertising agency developed theFCB grid model by incorporating theconsumer involvement theory andsplit-brain theory. Based on the findingsof studies on the effects of involvementon the effectiveness of advert type, thefollowing hypotheses are proposed:

H2a: A text-based banner advert ismore effective than an image-basedadvert when consumers are highlyinvolved.

H2b: An image-based banner advert ismore effective than a text-based advertwhen consumers are less involved.

Petty and Caccioppo40 attempted toexplain the effects of involvement throughthe elaboration likelihood model, whichpostulated the divergent informationprocessing path (central vs peripheral)contingent upon consumers’ level of


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were employed for this study. A type1 advert is a banner advert which istextual and intended for informationprovision. A type 2 advert is textualand intended for prize provision. Atype 3 advert is pictorial and intendedfor information provision. And a type4 advert is pictorial and intended forprize provision. The research designwith the intention of classifying thefour advert type conditions is shown inFigure 2.

The adverts employed for this studywere selected from adverts previouslyexecuted on the Internet which weredeemed by the author as best satisfyingthe selection criteria set out above. Thefour adverts were selected from awell-known Korean website where theywere actually in use during the sameperiod of time. This method wasexpected to minimise time orplace-based memory contaminationwhich is likely to result when a user isexposed to adverts on different websitesand at different times.

The type 1 advert was a banneradvert for a life insurance product, thetype 2 advert was for an e-shoppingmall, the type 3 advert was for fastfood (Ramen) and the type 4 one was

RESEARCH METHODSIn order to test whether attitudinalresponses to advert exposure areassociated with effectiveness of thedifferent types of banner adverts, twodifferent properties of advert, ‘advertcontent’ and ‘advert type’, wereemployed as a basis of advert selection.The ‘advert content’ refers to theprimary content intended by advertisersfor consumers’ exposure to an advert. Toincorporate this attribute into theresearch design for testing hypothesestwo types of advert were adopted whichwere primarily designed to provide eitherproduct information or prize information.Here, the term ‘prize’ refers to amonetary incentive provided as acompensation for participating in aspecial promotion initiated by theadvertiser. On the other hand, adverttype refers to the basic format in whichthe advert is executed, either textuallybased or pictorially based.

Advert type classification andquestionnaire

In order to incorporate the above fourdifferent conditions into the researchdesign, four different types of adverts



Figure 2 Research design for advert type manipulation

Advert type

Advert content

Text Image

Information Type 1 advert Type 3 advert

Prize Type 2 advert Type 4 advert

RESEARCH FINDINGS ANDDISCUSSIONS

Motives for using banner adverts

In order to find the motives for usingbanner adverts, 25 question were askedon a seven-point Likert scale. Factoranalysis was conducted to learn therespondents’ motives for using banneradverts. When the factor analysis wasperformed with no conditions specified,seven factors were extracted with onefactor containing only one item. Forthis reason, subsequent analyses wereconducted with a condition that afactor should contain more than oneitem. As a result, six factors werechosen which satisfied eigenvalue beinggreater than one. The result of factoranalysis using varimax rotation is shownin Table 1.

The results showed that respondentswanted to use banner adverts for thefollowing six reasons. Most importantly,they used banner adverts to ‘maintainsocial relationships’ (34.5 per cent).Secondly, they wanted to ‘rest and passtime’ (11.9 per cent). Thirdly, theywanted to ‘satisfy their curiosity’ (7.0per cent). Fourthly, they wanted to usethe banner advert for ‘practical reasons’(5.5 per cent). Fifthly, they weremotivated by ‘two-way communication’(5.0 per cent) function served by theInternet. Finally, they used it out of‘interest in product’ (4.5 per cent).Drawing from research on mediaorientation introduced earlier, themotives for using banner adverts maybe regarded as taking on more of aninstrumental (eg practical reason,interest in products and satisfy curiosity)orientation than a diversionaryorientation (eg rest and pass time).Also, in terms of the process model’ssocial and psychological needs, themotives for using banner advertsaddressed cognitive needs (eg practical

for an automobile tyre. It was believedthat these four adverts would provide abetter sense of reality than advertscreated by a researcher with fixedbrand identifications. In order toprevent biased ratings stemming fromrespondents’ affinity with brands usedin the study, questions were phrased interms of ‘This type of advert . . . ’. Thequestionnaire scale was based on aseven-point Likert scale. The actualadverts selected for the study areshown in the Appendix withtranslations of the copy message.

A questionnaire survey was conductedusing a person-to-person interviewmethod — this method was consideredmore controllable than one using anonline survey. This self-reported methodmay not be as strong as an experimentalsimulation approach in terms of externalvalidity, but it was deemed more suitablefor the intended research objectives, sinceit can tease out the elements of banneradverts that directly influence subjects’preferential ratings for variations ofbanner adverts with regard to advert typeand advert content. The sample wasconfined to people living in metropolitanareas of Seoul. Since this study focuseson user-based evaluation of banneradverts, it was deemed appropriate toselect the sample from those who haveaccess to the Internet and those whocurrently use it. Therefore, only thosewho use the Internet at least one hourper week were selected as a sample. Atotal of 125 qualified respondents werecontacted and of those 114 returnedquestionnaires. After discarding 14questionnaires that were unusable, theremaining 100 questionnaires were usedfor data analysis. Although the finalsample size was not large, it wasconsidered appropriate for anexperimental database designed to verifythe hypothetical directions with adequatestatistical robustness.


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— ease of comprehension of the advertmessage

— credibility— liking— recall of the advert— level of click inducement— product purchase likelihood— word-of-mouth experience.

Table 2 shows the result of respondents’responses to advert exposure to fourdifferent advert types.

According to the summed ratings foreach type of advert, the informationoriented advert with pictorial type (type3) was found to produce the mostpositive response, followed by thepictorial/prize advert (type 4), the

reason and interest in products),personal integrative needs (eg satisfycuriosity), social integrative needs (egmaintain social relationship andtwo-way communication) and escapistneeds (eg rest and pass time).

As the purpose of this study was todetermine the effectiveness of banneradverts measured by consumers’perceived preference towards a particulartype of banner advert, questionnaireitems were composed of the followingeight items which describe therespondents’ subjective opinions on thebanner adverts:

— amount of interest drawn by theadvert



Table 1: Result of factor analyses on the motives for using banner adverts

Component Variables F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6

Factor 1: Maintain social relationships I think I am ahead of others 0.765 0.176 0.114 –0.024 0.376 0.178By advice from others 0.714 0.228 0.060 0.336 0.002 0.031By habitual force 0.682 0.134 0.283 0.057 0.014 0.136To pass time 0.669 0.391 0.161 –0.001 0.092 –0.202Since others watch me 0.625 0.515 0.117 0.084 0.251 –0.016To diversify my experience 0.621 0.072 0.456 –0.029 0.156 0.236To talk about it with others 0.562 0.423 0.093 0.068 –0.244 0.370It is more novel than other media adverts 0.526 0.131 0.297 0.058 0.338 0.410Factor 2: Rest and pass timeI can get away from daily doings 0.331 0.785 0.140 –0.021 0.105 –0.050I lose interest in websites 0.202 0.737 0.335 0.000 0.221 0.054To spend time on the Internet 0.513 0.696 0.248 –0.012 –0.133 0.053Factor 3: Satisfy curiositySince advert is there –0.026 0.198 0.766 –0.066 0.167 –0.025It is visually interesting 0.359 0.109 0.736 0.051 0.116 0.124Just for fun 0.283 0.392 0.687 0.086 0.033 0.076Curious for new kind of advert 0.264 0.005 0.550 0.339 0.089 0.161Factor 4: Practical reasonTo get information about product –0.090 –0.080 0.183 0.789 0.046 0.155To purchase product and service 0.156 0.415 –0.176 0.739 0.077 –0.001Since online purchase is possible 0.442 –0.053 –0.090 0.534 0.317 –0.089To get information about foreign goods 0.073 –0.047 0.142 0.500 0.371 0.408Factor 5: Two-way communicationI can see advert whenever I want 0.021 0.029 0.085 0.201 0.722 0.043It is more interactive than other media 0.389 0.124 0.215 0.027 0.678 0.159To see advert customised for me –0.173 0.376 0.098 0.246 0.429 0.393Factor 6: Interest in productsWhen the advert is for my favourite product 0.082 –0.044 0.012 0.089 0.079 0.875Want to know about specific product 0.165 –0.258 0.208 0.493 0.126 0.512To get diversity in information source 0.220 0.165 0.217 0.055 0.483 0.493Eigenvalue 8.61 2.97 1.74 1.37 1.24 1.11Variance explained (%) 34.5 11.9 7.00 5.50 5.00 4.50Cumulative percent 34.5 46.4 53.4 58.9 63.8 68.3Cronbach alpha 0.87 0.85 0.79 0.80 0.83 0.74

characteristics (ie advert type and advertcontent), t-test was performed on each ofthe two advert groups (type I vs type IIand type III vs the type IV). The resultof t-tests is presented in Table 3.

As shown in Table 3, in all eightitems, pictorial adverts were rated assignificantly superior to textual adverts.Information oriented adverts did not,however, show such significantdifferences from prize oriented adverts asthere were between pictorial adverts andtextual adverts. Prize oriented advertsscored slightly better than informationadverts with statistical significance at 0.10level. Looking at individual items, theprize advert was perceived as significantlybetter than the information advert indrawing Internet users’ interest and in

textual/prize advert (type 2) and thetextual/information advert (type 1).

Next, in order to investigate furtherthe differences between the adverts interms of two advert characteristics (ietextual vs pictorial and information vsprize), the four types of advert wererearranged so that textually orientedadverts (advert types 1 and 2) wereregrouped as type I and pictoriallyoriented adverts (types 3 and 4) wereregrouped as type II by taking averagescores of the two. In the same manner,information intended adverts (types 1 and3) were regrouped as type III, whileprize intended adverts (types 2 and 4)were regrouped as type IV. Then, for thepurpose of verifying the differencebetween advert types based on the two


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Table 2: Result of advert exposure for four different types of banner advert

[Type 1] [Type 2] [Type 3] [Type 4]Information/ Prize/ Information/ Prize/

Question Items Text Text Image Image

This type of advert interests me 3.11 4.27 5.15 5.08The message of this type of advert is easy to 3.65 3.97 5.30 4.68understandThis type of advert is credible 3.14 3.20 3.99 3.63This type of advert is likable 2.70 3.54 4.77 3.97This type of advert is memorable 2.93 3.67 4.51 3.91This type of advert inclines me to click 2.52 3.48 4.21 4.01This type of advert makes me likely to purchase 2.47 3.14 3.75 3.41I told others about info from this type of advert 2.40 3.20 3.66 3.34

Total 22.92 28.47 35.37 32.03

Table 3: t-test results on ad ratings for four banner advert types

t-test t-test[Type I] [Type II] [Type III] [Type IV]

Question Items Textual Pictorial Information Prize

This type of advert interests me 3.69 5.12*** 4.13 4.68***The message of this type of advert is easy to 3.86 5.01*** 4.49 4.33understandThis type of advert is credible 3.17 3.81*** 3.57 3.42This type of advert is likable 3.12 4.37*** 3.74 3.76This type of advert memorable 3.3 4.21*** 3.72 3.79This type of advert inclines me to click 3.0 4.11*** 3.37 3.75**This type of advert makes me likely to purchase 2.81 3.58*** 3.11 3.28I told others about info from this type of advert 2.80 3.50*** 3.03 3.27**

Total 25.75 33.70*** 29.15 30.25*

*p < 0.10 **p < 0.05 ***p < 0.001

advert were perceived at different levelsof advert involvement. The ratings usedfor the measure of attitude were takenfrom the average of eight question itemswhich were previously used to measurethe level of perceived preference towardInternet banner adverts.

The result in Table 4 indicates thatadvert involvement had a consistentlysalient effect on perceived preference ofbanner adverts in all four different typesat 0.05 significance level. That is,respondents with high advertinvolvement showed higher preferencefor all four types of banner adverts. Butto see how advert involvement interactswith advert type, separate paired samplet-tests were performed on adverteffectiveness for high and low advertinvolvements as shown in Table 5.

As shown in the table, the result ofpaired comparisons showing the effects ofadvert type revealed interesting results. Itwas found that for highly involvedconsumers, image advert made asignificant difference in adverteffectiveness only when it was intendedfor product information. Specifically, animage advert was superior to a text-basedadvert for an information oriented advertbut, for the prize intended advert, imagewas not significantly better than text.Another important finding is that for lowinvolvement consumers, advert type (ieimage) made a consistently significant

inducing them to click on the advert andin getting them to talk about informationfrom the advert.

In summary, Internet banner advertswere found to be better suited to thepictorial type than the textual one. Also,it was found that prize is a more salientmotive for using banner adverts thaninformation is. Thus H1, whichpredicted that advert effectiveness isdependent on advert type, is accepted.

The effects of advert involvement

Next, the effect of advert involvementon the preference of adverts withtextual/image presentation type andadverts of information/prize orientationwas examined. In order to measure thelevel of involvement, three questionitems, ‘I have an interest in Internetbanner adverts’, ‘I think that banneradverts are an important source ofproduct information’ and ‘I tend to relyon banner adverts for product purchase’,were used as a measure of involvement.The responses to these questions wereaveraged and recoded to distinguish thehigh and low levels of advertinvolvement. For this purpose, thosewho answered ‘average’ were deletedfrom the data set which resulted in 30respondents with low involvement and43 with high involvement. Table 4shows how favourably the four types of



Table 4: Attitudes towards four different advert types based on high/low advert involvement

Text-oriented Image-orientedInformation Prize Information Prize

High advert involvement

Low advert involvement

Total

t-test (high vs. low advertinvolvement)

3.01(1.17)2.48(0.88)2.86(1.10)

4.16(1.08)2.63(1.09)3.55(1.24)

4.75(0.84)3.83(0.97)4.42(1.07)

4.37(1.17)3.42(1.18)4.00(1.23)

F=3.379Sig(2-tailed)=0.041

F=0.165Sig(2-tailed)=0.000

F=0.926Sig(2-tailed)=0.000

F=0.345Sig(2-tailed)=0.001

*Parenthesised numbers indicate standard deviation

high involvement consumers. Theinterface between advert type and advertcontent in terms of advert effectiveness(measured by preference) is depicted inFigures 3 and 4.

Next, in order to determine the roleof advert purpose on advert effectivenessfor both high and low involvement,Table 6, showing paired comparisonsbased on advert content, was prepared.

The table provides importantinformation regarding the effectivenessof advert content. It was found thatfor both high and low involvementconsumers, the advert content showedmixed results in effectiveness contingentupon the advert type. For instance, forhighly involved consumers, aninformation-based advert was superiorto a prize-based one when it waspresented in image, while a prizeadvert was superior to an informationadvert when it was in text. Thismixed effectiveness pattern was alsodetected in the low involvementconsumers but with less intensity. Forexample, for low involvementconsumers, an information advert wassuperior to a prize advert when the

difference in advert effectivenessregardless of the advert content. This factexplicitly suggests that an image orientedadvert is more effective than a textoriented advert for lower involvementconsumers than for higher involvementconsumers, which was hypothesised byH2b. Therefore, H2b is accepted. Onthe other hand, the finding also suggeststhat a text oriented advert is not moreeffective than an image oriented advertfor highly involved consumers. ThereforeH2a which hypothesised the superiorityof a text advert in a high involvementsituation is not accepted. As anothermeans of verifying the observation onthe superiority of advert type, the effectsof advert content were neutralised byaveraging two scores (ie information andprize) to find a median point. Thismeasure produced, for the highinvolvement situation, 3.58 and 4.56 fortext advert and image advert respectively.In the low involvement situation, scoreswere 2.55 and 3.62, respectively.Therefore, the conclusion can be drawnthat advert type was more contingent inits effectiveness on advert content forlow involvement consumers than for


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Table 5: Results of paired sample t-tests on the type of banner adverts

ComparisonHigh advert involvement Low advert involvementMean Sig. Mean Sig.

Pair 1

Pair 2

Type 1 advert (info/text) —Type 3 advert (info/image)Type 2 advert (prize/text) —Type 4 advert (prize/image)

–1.738***

–0.209

0.000

0.281

–1.345***

–0.795***

0.000

0.000

*p<0.10 **p<0.05 ***p<0.001

Table 6: Results of paired sample t-tests on content of banner adverts

Pair ComparisonHigh advert involvement Low advert involvementMean Sig. Mean Sig.

Pair 1

Pair 2

Type 1 advert (text/info) —Type 2 advert (text/prize)Type 3 advert (image/info) —Type 4 advert (image/prize)

–1.154***

0.375**

0.000

0.024

–0.145

0.404**

0.401

0.035

*p<0.10 **p<0.05 ***p<0.001

high involvement situation, 3.33 and4.56 for information advert and prizeadvert, respectively. For the lowinvolvement situation, the scores were3.15 and 3.02 respectively. From thesefigures, it can be concluded that theprize-intended advert is more effectivethan the information intended advert forhighly involved consumers, while theinformation advert is slightly moreeffective than the prize advert for lowinvolvement consumers. Therefore, H3aand H3b which predicted the superiorityof text in high involvement andsuperiority of image in low involvementwere not accepted. The interfacebetween advert content and advert type

advert was in pictorial type, and aninformation advert was not significantlymore effective than a prize advertwhen the advert was in textual type.From these findings, it can beconcluded that advert content is moreformat-dependent in effectiveness forhighly involved consumers than for lowinvolvement consumers.

Since it was difficult to conclude therelative superiority of advert content inboth high and low involvementsituations due to the mixed effectivenessof advert content, the effects of adverttype were neutralised by averaging thescores (ie text and image) to find amedian point. This resulted in, for the



Figure 3 Advert preference for advert type for high involvement consumers

Figure 4 Advert preference for advert type for low involvement consumers

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CONCLUSIONS ANDIMPLICATIONSThe primary objectives of this studywere, using empirical data from Internetusers in Korea, to discover the majormotives for consumers’ use of Internet(banner) adverts, and to determine thesources of effectiveness of banner advertsin terms of advert type (text vs image)and advert content (information vs prize)by incorporating theories on the role ofconsumers’ level of involvement onadvert effectiveness.

The results showed that respondentswanted to use banner adverts for‘maintaining social relationships,’ ‘rest andpass time,’ ‘curiosity,’ ‘practical reasons,’

in terms of advert preference is depictedin Figures 5 and 6.

In summary, the level of advertinvolvement had a significantdistinguishing impact on all four types ofadverts, resulting in higher advertpreference for both advert type andadvert content. Both high and lowinvolvement consumers were morepositively responsive to an image-basedadvert than a text-based advert.However, highly involved consumerswere significantly more responsive to aprize advert than to an informationadvert whereas low involvementconsumers were slightly more responsiveto an information advert.


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Figure 5 Advert preference for advert content for high involvement consumers

Figure 6 Advert preference for advert content for low involvement consumers

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adverts. What is important from thisconclusion is that marketers need to getthe audience highly involved in thebanner adverts. In order to induce afavourable attitude towards a banneradvert, they need to understand whataffects an audience’s interest and attitudetowards banner adverts. To this end,marketers need to target different groupsof people with different preferences foradvert properties. For example, marketersmay want to take advantage ofinformation from predefined consumergroups based on data on their visitfrequency, clickthrough rates and purchaserecord. This kind of information will givemarketers a good idea about their level ofinvolvement and preference towardstargeted product categories. Armed withthis knowledge, marketers can thenproceed to differentiate advert propertiesby strategically varying emphasis ondifferent message types and messagecontents depending on the level ofconsumer involvement.

A few words of caution are necessary inapplying what was found in this study inthe real world. First, as this study reliedon a controlled-Internet environment(based on a survey instrument), theeffectiveness of banner adverts may notexactly simulate the real situation. Thisset-up may, therefore, run the risk of‘sensitising’ respondents to the effects ofbanner adverts beyond their normal scopeof cognitive activity. To reduce thisproblem, future studies need to attemptan ‘experimental simulation’ approachwhere the natural integrity of the onlineadvert-exposure environment is keptintact. Secondly, since real adverts forauthentic products were employed,bias-free attitude formation may bedifficult due to respondents’ implicitbrand preference. To rectify this potentialproblem, a more refined research designcould be configured, perhaps by blindingthe brand identity. But the value of doing

‘two-way communication’ and for‘interest in product’. It was concludedthat the motives for using banner advertswere more of an instrumental nature thana diversionary one. Also, drawing onterms used for the process model’s socialand psychological needs, the motives forusing banner adverts addressed cognitiveneeds, personal integrative needs, socialintegrative needs and escapist needs. Thisfinding is important since it shows thatthe Internet plays an important role inmeeting consumers’ social,communicative and instrumental needs.This finding should be of interest tomedia planners who want to develop aneffective media mix where the Internetcan play an integrative role as well as acomplementary one with respect toestablished media.

Using two properties of banner adverts(advert type and advert content), thisstudy devised four different types ofbanner adverts to assess their effectivenessas measured by consumers’ preferencestowards adverts. The results showed thatimage was significantly more effectivethan text for Internet banner adverts. Itwas also found that prize is a more salientmotive for the use of banner adverts thaninformation in drawing Internet users’interest and inducing clickthroughbehaviour and in producingword-of-mouth effect. It was also foundthat the level of advert involvement had asignificant impact on the effectiveness ofall four types of adverts, creating higheradvert preference for advert type andadvert content when consumers werehighly involved. Both high and lowinvolvement consumers were morepositively responsive to image advertsthan to text adverts. Highly-involvedconsumers were, however, morepositively responsive to prize adverts thanto information adverts, whereas lowinvolvement consumers were slightlymore positively responsive to information



traditional advertising’, Journal of Advertising Research,July/August, pp. 23–33.

11 Clawson (1993) op. cit.12 Park et al. (1997) op. cit.13 Lee, H. W. (1997) ‘A study of the economic value

of Internet: Focus on Internet advert and cybermarketing’, Advertising Studies, Summer, pp. 33–54.

14 Korean Advertisers’ Association (1997) ‘Survey ofInternet and pc communication users in Korea’.

15 Hunter, C. D. (1996) ‘The uses and gratifications ofthe World Wide Web’, manuscript presented at theDepauw University National Undergraduate HonorsConference.

16 Dervin, B. (1989) ‘Rethinking communication’,Sage Publications, London.

17 Rubin, A. M. (1994) ‘Media uses and effects: A usesand gratifications perspective’, in Bryant, J. andZillmann, D. (eds) ‘Media effects: Advances intheory and research’, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale,NJ, pp. 417–436.

18 Edelstein, A. S. (1989) ‘Communication andculture’, Longman Inc, New York.

19 Greenwald, A. G. and Leavitt, C. (1984) ‘Audienceinvolvement in advertising: Four levels’, Journal ofConsumer Research, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 581–592.

20 Finn, A. (1988) ‘Print advert recognition readershipscores: An information processing perspective’, Journalof Marketing Research, Vol. 25, May, pp. 168–177.

21 Greenwald and Leavitt (1984) op.cit.22 Lutz, R. J. (1977) ‘An experimental investigation of

causal relations among cognitions, affect, andbehavioral intentions’, Journal of Consumer Research,Vol. 3, March, pp. 197–208.

23 Pavio, A. (1969) ‘Mental imagery in associativelearning and memory’, Psychological Review, Vol. 76,May, pp. 241–263.

24 Kisielius, J. and Sternthal, B. (1984) ‘Detecting andexplaining vividness effects in attitudinal judgments’,Journal of Marketing Research, February, Vol. 3, No.10, pp. 29–49.

25 Wright, P. and Rip, P. C. (1980) ‘Product classadvertising effects on first-time buyers’ decisionstrategies’. Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 7,September, pp. 176–188.

26 Childers and Houston (1984) op. cit.27 Milgram (1967) op. cit.28 Mowen (1988) op. cit.29 Lutz and Lutz (1976) op. cit.30 Childers and Houston (1984) op. cit.31 Leong, E. K., Huang, X. and Stanners, P. J. (1998)

‘Comparing the effectiveness of the website withtraditional media’, Journal of Advertising Research,September/October, p. 45–51.

32 Unnava, H. R. and Burnkrant, R. E. (1991) ‘Animagery-processing view of the role of pictures inprint advertisements’, Journal of Marketing Research,Vol. 28, May, pp. 226–231.

33 Bezjian-Avery (1998) op. cit.34 Lutz (1977) op. cit.35 Zaichkowsky, J. L. (1985) ‘Measuring the

involvement construct’, Journal of Consumer Research,Vol. 12, December, pp. 341–352.

this should be determined in a futurestudy. Finally, future studies need to adoptmore diverse stimulus in addition toadvert type and advert content. Sincebanner adverts are taking multimediaplatforms, more sophisticated researchdesign should look at the effects ofanimation, sound, colour andsize/location of the banner. In a relatedcontext, a future study might benefit froma cross-cultural study comparing differentdata sets stemming from different culturalregions, where banner adverts may beconceived differently due to divergentvalue systems.

AcknowledgmentsThe author thanks two anonymous reviewers for theirhelpful comments. This research was supported by KyonggiUniversity Research Grant (Ref No. 2002–001).

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Advert Type 3

Translation: (1) I am a defender of earth, Steam Ramen; (2) I am afraid of nothing; (3) Huh! Steam Ramen!!; (4)Really hot taste; (5) Wow! It’s steamy tasty; (6) Wow, even Calcium?; (7) Let’s do it after Steam Ramen!; (8)Steam Ramen (with its brand logo).

findings’, in proceedings of the American MarketingAssociation Educators’ Conference, pp. 95–98.

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42 Finn (1988) op. cit.43 Krugman (1965) op. cit.

36 Krugman, H. E. (1977) ‘Memory without recall,exposure with perception’, Journal of AdvertisingResearch, Vol. 17, August, pp. 7–12.

37 Krugman, H. E. (1965) ‘The impact of televisionadvertising: Learning without involvement’, PublicOpinion Quarterly, Vol. 29, pp. 349–356.

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39 Rothschild, M. L. and Houston, M. J. (1977) ‘Theconsumer involvement matrix: Some preliminary



APPENDIX

Advert Type 2

Translation: (1) ‘9 per cent subscriber dividendsgiven in 1999; (2) Kyobo Insurance is good; (3)even in this Low Interest Rate Age’.

Advert Type 2

Translation: (1) Chance! Samsung Mall; (2) It’s OKif you only have driver’s licence; (3) It’s OK even ifyou don’t have driver’s licence; (4) Maximum 100mWon sudden car start insurance is (5) FREE.

( 1 )

( 4 )

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( 2 )

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( 3 )

( 6 )

( 1 )

( 4 )

( 8 )( 7 )

( 5 )

( 2 )

(1)

(3)

(2)

Advert Type 4

Translation: (1) I must find it!!!; (2) Soluth 4th TV-Commercial’s; (3) Idea; (4) is being searched; (5) for a total of10m Won; (6) Apply for it now; (7) Click (with Keumho Tyre’s logo).


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( 1 ) ( 2 )

( 5 )

( 4 )( 3 )

( 6 ) ( 7 )

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